JFK and Stark: Many locals had strong ties to president

In John F. Kennedy's death, as he had during his life, Tom Krynock of Navarre stood with the president. Krynock was one of many Stark County connections to the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963.

In John F. Kennedy's death, as he had during his life, Tom Krynock of Navarre stood with the president.

As a young member of the Marine Corps in 1963, Krynock was part of the "death watch," standing at attention in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol building as President Kennedy lay in state. Prior to the assassination, he had been part of the military guard at the Camp David presidential retreat.

"There were six of us chosen from the 6th (Marine) Battalion," recalled Krynock, who noted that members of other branches of service also were part of the rotating contingent. "We stood a half-hour on and two hours off for the duration of the viewing. You'd stand at rigid attention, eyes straight ahead, until the commander came to relive you."

The guards were captured in newspaper and magazine photographs and pictured on television, standing at attention beside the president's casket.

"At the time, you're doing your job," he said. "But to think of that now, to realize that the whole world was seeing it take place, it makes you feel good to know that you were a part of it."

Memories of the hours he stood as honor guard beside the president's body remain vivid.

"It was very quiet. All you heard was footsteps. You wouldn't hear anybody at all talking. With the number of people passing by, you'd think there would be conversation, but there was nothing. Just silence."

Krynock was one of many Stark County connections to the Kennedy assassination in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963.

CITY CONNECTIONS

Canton's mayor was visiting his brother in Dallas when tragedy struck.

"Mayor James H. Lawhun, who is vacationing with his wife in Dallas, Texas, was in an office within two blocks of the scene of the assassination of President Kennedy Friday," reported The Repository on Nov. 23, 1963. "In a telephone call to The Repository shortly after the tragedy, Mayor Lawhun said he had never seen a city in such a state of shock and sadness. ... News of the shooting, he said, left people weeping openly in the streets."

Former Canton mayor, Charles Babcock also had a close connection to the president. Babcock was mayor of Canton from 1958 to 1961 and participated in Kennedy visits in 1959 and 1960.

"Dad liked Kennedy," said his son, James Babcock, who noted that his father went as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1960.

During campaign stops in Canton, Mayor Babcock rode in a motorcade with Kennedy and appeared with him at the Canton Auditorium.

Babcock, who was in grade school at the time of Kennedy's inauguration, said his parents went to Washington to watch the president be sworn into office. Passed down through the family are photographs of the Babcocks at inaugural activities, a bound program commemorating Kennedy's inauguration, and such memorabilia as charms that were given to those attending the event.

Page 2 of 3 - "Gold was given to the women and silver to the men."

The assassination brought an ironic end to Mayor Babcock's political and personal relationship with President Kennedy.

"Kennedy was killed on my dad's birthday," Babcock said.

MESSAGE BEARER

Fred Walsh of Massillon was preparing to go to work at the White House when the assassination took place, said his wife, Joan Walsh.

"He was in the Army attached to the White House Communications Agency, providing constant communication wherever the President was," said Walsh, who still lives in Massillon, in information she sent to The Repository. "While at the White House, he would decode messages that came through and would type them up and hand carry them up to the oval office and hand them directly to the President."

Walsh said she fixed her husband's lunch at their home in Virginia before he went to the White House on Nov. 22, 1963. He learned from a neighbor that the president had been shot while taking that lunch to his car.

"Fred left immediately for work and said, 'I'll see you when I see you,' " remembered Walsh, who later was invited by the first lady to come to Washington with her husband and other staff members and spouses to view Kennedy's casket in the East Wing of the White House, so they wouldn't have to stand in line at the Capitol.

Walsh and several other wives were escorted by their husbands to the viewing.

"When I saw the coffin and guards at each corner of the casket ... I felt weak in the knees and faint," she said. "This was real and overwhelming."

VIEW OF THE CAR

Two Stark County men who went to Washington, D.C., to watch President Kennedy's funeral processions got more of an inside look at an historical event than they expected.

"Because they stopped at midnight last Sunday to assist at the scene of a traffic mishap, two Greater Canton men ... heard a firsthand report from a government eyewitness of the assassination in Dallas last Friday," The Repository reported after the men — Emil Drenta of Navarre and George Sutdu of Canton — returned home.

The driver of the wrecked vehicle, the newspaper reported, was a Secret Service agent who had been only feet from the president in Dallas the moment he was shot. The agent himself was on his way to Kennedy's funeral. Drenta and Sutdu took the agent the remaining 43 miles to Washington.

"The local men took their passenger directly to the White House garage, where he could obtain a car," the article by Repository reporter Judy Small said. "Here they could look at, but not touch, the car in which the President had been riding in Dallas. It had been flown to Washington. The dark blue limousine still carried marks of the tragedy."

Page 3 of 3 - The agent gave the two men a memento for their assistance — a gold PT boat tie clasp that reportedly was given to the agent by President Kennedy and bore the name of the late President on its bow.

PRIEST ASSISTS

Three decades after the assassination of President Kennedy, The Rev. Robert Brengartner, by then a retired priest living in Massillon, still could remember Jacqueline Kennedy's blood-stained clothing as she exited the ambulance at Bethesda Naval Hospital just hours after her husband had been slain.

"I still remember the blood-stained dress. There was blood on her stockings," he told The Repository at the 30th anniversary of the assassination. "I could definitely see it."

Brengartner, who was chaplain at the hospital in 1963, greeted Mrs. Kennedy as the president's body was brought for an autopsy. He was prepared to say something to her to ease her pain.

Instead, he helped her out of the ambulance with few words.

"It seemed we didn't exchange much," he recalled. "I was dumbfounded. What can you say?"

After Kennedy's body was taken to an examining room, the president's brother, Robert Kennedy, and his wife, Ethel, entered the hospital.

"Ethel said, 'Father, do you have a rosary?'" Brengartner recalled.

The couple went to pray in the hospital chapel. They stayed there for three hours while the autopsy was performed. Brengartner continued his duties on this historic day — a day like none other in the career of a priest who had been a Navy chaplain through World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.